


All the Other Kids

by auralikh



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24326653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auralikh/pseuds/auralikh
Summary: with their pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, faster than my bullet(or Akechi wins. At least he thinks he did.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	All the Other Kids

**Author's Note:**

> idk what this is i'm just trying to get out of my quarantine non writing hump

Pluck. Pluck.

Akechi’s lip twitches and tenses as each rogue hair gets forced out. And there’s always one tiny stub, barely poking out from the skin but thicker and darker than the others, almost feigning the appearance of a blackhead, that always takes the longest to pinpoint. But once he gets the hind leg of the tweezer rooted right behind it, all it takes is one deft motion to eliminate it, just as defenseless as the others.

What a nuisance. The minority of critics out there must be getting stronger magnifying glasses to try to find anything to sully his reputation. Just like those thieves who must be scrambling to make a plan after their fallout. Or maybe they’re all hiding. If Akechi had a warrant prepared for the Sakura residence, he’s sure to find the gremlin there. Maybe he should prioritize that. A hacker doesn’t need to necessarily be anywhere to infiltrate anything. At the same time, she never actually used any of her technical skills beyond dealing with the fake Medjed scheme. She hadn’t even added security measures to the other thieves’ phones.

Which makes it perfectly easy to figure out Makoto’s schedule.

Clockwork train schedules match a clockwork student. And Akechi’s gotten the shutdown countdown precision down to seconds.

Another tragedy that couldn’t have been prevented. That’s what the mental shutdowns symbolize now, a symptom of an overworked society that drags down everything around it. A perfect rhetoric tool for politicians. An easy mask for a celebrity like him.

Akechi himself never saw the body. But he doesn’t need to. Sae’s attendance streak broke for the first time since she started her job, and that tells him just as much as a broken spine or a hole cut clean through the forehead.

* * *

Turns out you only need two deaths to break some spirits. It’s convenient, almost laughably so.

The shadow smiles in front of him, “So I’m going to die here?” The lilt of elation is almost nonexistent.

Akechi scowls under the hood of the clunky mask. “You shouldn’t have made so many defenses if you wanted to die so badly.”

The body of the shadow disintegrates before it could hit the bodies of the two sphinxes that were too busy trying to destroy the pyramid to look at Akechi. The one wearing Wakaba’s face crumbles instantly. The other one stares blankly as it slowly melts away, looking just like Akira the moment he got shot in the face.

Futaba had no such knowledge of how Akechi killed the boy. He doesn’t waste much time thinking about it as he marks off one more tally on a notepad as soon as the air turns cold and crisp again outside the fantasy of a delirious desert, for the sake of making himself feel more productive.

* * *

“One cappuccino.”

Akechi’s hand freezes against the burning ceramic. He pulls back a second later, an overdue reflex. No, this part-timer has the same scruffy look and a pair of worn glasses with fingerprints visible in the right lighting, but he looks ten years too old.

“Thank you. Say, are you new here? I haven’t seen you before.”

It’s all useless small talk. A little distraction as he waits for the drink to cool just enough for that cozy temperature that’ll leave the tongue burnt the next day. Akechi nods at what the barista says and pulls out his phone as he takes the first sip of his drink, a polite nod off for the conversation. The man is quite a bit talkative once someone initiates conversation. Akechi’s a real sham of a detective to mistake him for someone else.

“Well, be careful out there.” The barista wipes off the nozzle of the milk foamer and pours some soy milk into a cup.

“Hm?”

“I’m sure you know more than me, about all the teens and fellas in their twenties dying in freak accidents and mass suicides. There’s a lot of dark, dangerous things out in the world.”

Akechi tries to translate a scoff to a polite chuckle. It usually works. “It’s my job to stay careful, but thank you.” From the back, the barista and the ambiance look to make a poor imitation of Leblanc. They even have an old TV broadcasting the news in the corner for the older customers to gaze up at while the others entertain themselves with company or their phones.

Footage of a girl jumping off a building loops over and over as the reporter voiceover spits out details and speculations by the dozen. Who would take over the Okumura food empire is the biggest question at hand, moreso than what could that young lady possibly have been thinking at the edge of that railing? Did she hesitate at the meters and meters that go down into the inevitable concrete, or at how small people and trucks full of supplies look in the larger scale of things? So small, they can never be scrubbed off the skin completely. It’s that hesitation that makes it so easy to regress. Her father was weak and so was she.

* * *

Akira thought he was such a good actor. On that day, however, his expression was at first blank, an empty vessel yet to be filled with any humanity, then it had shifted to an easygoing smile except that easygoing never looked so shaky. 

It had reset to blank when Akechi raised the gun at point-blank range. The bastard managed to say something before his forehead was blown empty.

“Any chance you want to play pool? You can use your left hand. Go all out.”

Akechi doesn’t need to go all out to win. It was as easy as a click of a button. He doesn’t need to go all out to win. Because he’s better than Akira. He’s better than all of them combined.

* * *

They all have Akira in some twisted form or another it’s absolutely infuriating. It’s pathetic, how much the shadow of their dead leader haunts them so deeply, is engraved into the essence of their palace. But Akechi’s got a hit list to run through and with a pressing deadline at that so he shoots each Akira down, right on the head like the first time. None of them ever looked angry for that. Dumb bastard thought he could just help anyone.

“You’ve saved me the honor of being last, I see.” The frosted incarnation of that artist can’t even move from where he’s stationed, confined by the walls of his overly ornate but rusting frame. Statues of all of the phantom thieves encircle them.

“Only because you’re an excessive accessory.”

“Such a vile mouth.”

The shot rings out, clean and precise. This Yusuke is just as thin and frail as any old painting in a museum, those that only exist to look pretty in the background for all the mindless tourists that take pictures in front of them. They’re all like that, falling to one, maybe two bullets. None of them are angry enough to truly fight back, Ryuji Sakamoto being the one exception. Makoto might’ve had the determination to fight, especially as the first target, one who didn’t know that everything she worked for would come falling down.

Akechi feels a cold hand on his shoulder. It’s the statue of Akira. Of course they can move.

“Is. I-is this… what you really want?” The thing has a hard time articulating itself with marble lips.

Akechi shoots this Akira just the same as all the others.

“Is this what I want? Ridiculous. It’s never been about what I want.” It’s a must, it’s a need. A constant heart pulling, wringing, clawing “must.” None of these naive heroic wannabes know what anger means.

The statue crumbles and falls, but not away from Akechi, like the trajectory of the bullet, but towards him, caking his costume with dust. It won’t come off even after the rest of the palace fades into nothing. 


End file.
